#thaumadating

[glitterbark]

ACTUALLY, FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION IT.

You’ll actually be seeing a good deal of Buttercup during the course of the game, because Buttercup has decided that she wants to see Crane get a happy ending - and, being a whimsical, gigantic busybody, she sees fit to frequently proffer ‘friendly advice’ to our local romance enthusiast. 

Or. well. Friendship advice, she’s down with that, too.

Basically, she appears randomly, seeming to halt the story whenever she appears to have private asides with Crane. Often, this comes in the form of amusing commentary and riffs on the situation, but occasionally she’ll provide genuinely helpful hints and tips, and - according to her fancies -  context to situations that Crane couldn’t possibly know on her own.

Of course, take her advice at your own peril, because sometimes she suggests things just to see what will happen. And she’ll make fun of Crane if she gets a bad ending.

She has a huge part in the game, though I haven’t yet decided if she should be romanceable or not. I think it’d be interesting, but....... well. Whether or not this actually ends up a thing is still up in the air! I haven’t made any concrete plans. The interest is noted, though. 

[glitterbark]

CAN WE DATE CEREBRUM

ssssso when i said ‘secret characters’ she was actually on that potential list lmao

It’s a very distinct possibility, and among the those options, she kinda ranks highest of stuff I’d be interested in doing.

She’d definitely be a route that you only unlock after doing a few other routes, though. I’m thinking it’ll -- okay, I’m sorry for being a huge nerd, but how routes are structured in visual novels is a Big Deal in planning.

There are a couple of ways to handle it - like, one is an Enforced Route Order. Fate/Stay Night does this, where do Saber’s route first, then Rin’s, then Sakura’s, and there’s no way to deviate from that.

There’s another where it’s just a free-for-all - uhhh, Katawa Shoujo comes to mind for that. The story is structured in a way that you can pick any route to do first, and there’s no encouraged first route, second route, etc.

The one I’d probably go with is what Tsukihime used - that is, you’ve got a couple of characters you can date initially, and their paths are designed to give you a good intro into the setting/plot. And then, after dating one of those, you unlock more routes, which often rely on things you probably learned in the initially available routes to make sense. They called it ‘Near Side’ (the initial routes) and ‘Far Side’ (the routes you unlock upon completing a Near Side route.)

The Cerebrum, in this case, would be a Far Side route. You couldn’t just smooch her from the get-go. But she’s potentially smoochable.

[glitterbark]

itsamechaosairlines replied to your photo “mmmmmoooore doodles. ngl while i play visual novels i doodle ideas for...”

Woops. Hit reply before I was done. It would be helpful to have markers for decisions made before on a second/repeat playthroughs of the game. I think it would be pretty neat to see if you go through with it.

Amnesia: Memories has a mechanic like that, and I personally think it’s super helpful. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to implement, either, I’m not a coding goddess by any means, but Ren’py is baby easy and I can think of how I’d do that.

Another thing I’d like to do is input Fate/Stay Night’s skipping mechanic. Basically, instead of having to manually skip through text, on repeat playthroughs you’ll be brought to a screen that says, ‘you’ve played through <suchandsuch> scene before, do you want to skip it?” and upon choosing yes you just go on to the next scene. It was soooooooooo helpful for a super text heavy game.

At the moment, I’m pretty focused on fanfic writing - I’ve started stuff, I wanna finish it, y’know? But maybe once I’ve finished up Papyrus Dates a Bird and gotten farther in the others, I’ll start seriously thinking about it beyond an ‘idea bouncing’ stage.

[glitterbark]

This Thaumatale dating game, is it a visual novel? Or a RPG? Or I mean -- What format would it be in? Or is it just like... an idea that you thought of that I'm taking too seriously?

Oh, it’d be a visual novel! I’ve always wanted to make a visual novel. I’ve tried a couple of times, but always....... kind of given up around the 30k word mark, lol. 

It probably would be a straight visual novel without any stat raising elements.

[glitterbark]

mmmmmoooore doodles. ngl while i play visual novels i doodle ideas for that prospective Thaumatale dating game. i have some cool ideas about it? this is all subject to change.

> Main character is Crane. In the prologue, she realizes that - unless she successfully bonds pretty strongly with someone - she is Going to Die. That’s the big ‘gimmick’ behind the routes.

> That strong bond can be either friendship or romance. That’s pretty high up on the list of priorities - even if I have to axe other things, I want there to be good platonic endings along with the romance endings.

> Prospective routes are Aegis, Legbiter, Many-Names, Rust, aaand... I’ve got a couple of ideas for the fifth ‘main’ one. If there’s a character you’re unnaturally attached to that I’ve drawn or written about, feel free to chime in. (I’m reluctant to add the Primus as an option because tbh he’s big into dick lol. tho maybe a purely platonic route might be a nice thing to write?? mmm) I’ve also got some ideas for some ‘secret’ characters that are substantially harder to get -- but those are much lower on the priorities list and might not make it into the final project.

> Events have been rearranged so that characters are much closer in age - for obvious reasons. This also means that the game won’t have the same exact plot or setup as the fics.

> A feature I’d like to add is like... a shipping feature?? like on certain routes you can do little side plots to pair up other members of the cast. Primus x Legbiter comes to mind, but Legbiter x Aegis would be cute as hell, along with Primus x Many-Names. I dunno how expansive it’ll be - like, really, this is all me musing about things that would be cool - but it’s something I’ll keep in mind while working out the plot.

> at the very least you can ship forest witch x dogwitch i’m  s o  sorry please take that as an apology.

> I’m....... planning a really meta mechanic where Crane has something of a ‘dating advisor’. it’s. a little umineko in set up.

> Due to the above point, the game is probably going to be written in second person. you’ll see why later.

[glitterbark]

i had a pretty bad day yesterday so I thought about the idea of a Thaumatale Dating Sim some more while playing trash games from my collection.

(crane would probably be the protagonist because the idea of a bird harem amuses me.)